I graduated from uni last year in Dec and I was so enthusiastic for the life without exams...you know what I mean! Honestly I was so pumped up despite the fact that I am terrible with transitions.
I am writing this as a life check for myself and any other person who has not mastered the art of transitions.
All was going well I'd say, with the major highlight being that I got into open source and I had more time to dedicate to programming. I even did a talk on tech.
Hell broke loose when I forgot that life involves a fine balance of holding on and letting go. Sometimes things do not pan out the way we envision them to and when that happened I allowed myself go down a sink hole. I was making money and definitely looking to scale that up but when I got a couple of rejection emails and the income streams dried up I stopped trying. I allowed my light to go dim, I believed that my dreams were not going to be actualized and every waking day I sank deeper. For 6 months.
I stopped trying! And that's where I went wrong!
Getting Out
I cannot fully emphasize the need for people who will believe in you when you do not believe in yourself. A week ago, my mentor called me and we had this conversation that really got me back on track. All along I remember thinking, 'I am so blessed to have someone who believes in me this much.' I wasn't doing well-utterly. That call reminded me of who I am and I wouldn't be writing this were it not for that. Thank you so much Maame.
The core of it was on keeping your head held high, believing in yourself and branding. Speaking for programmers and technical writers in matters branding, what is your Github like, where are your writing samples, what would you show a prospective recruiter to convince them that you are the right candidate. Are you conversant with popular frameworks? Branding is so key and my inactivity on the same was telling. Needless to say, I am the same person who had took down my landing page...Hahaa
In his book, Atomic Habits, James Clear writes; "...you learn to lock in on the cues that predict success and tune out everything else. When a similar situation arises in the future you know exactly what to look for....your brain skips the process of trial and error and creates a mental rule: if this, then that."
Probably your transition after uni will look like trial and error, as James Clear put it, before you are that place where you are a master of and at your craft. Keep going, don't be like me! Don't despair like I did!
I have been in uncharted waters and I clearly let go of the fact that there's trying, there's getting, there are rejections and all that but you keep your head held high. That explains the months long inactivity in this blog.
My Two Cents
You get out of campus and are ushered into a whole new world. This is your chapter one, keep building. Looking back, most of my rejection emails came from my poor branding. I cannot fully emphasize how key branding is. You need to sell yourself in the best way possible for that entry role you're looking for.
That said, there still will be No's but I believe that's part of the essence of life. You keep moving, no matter what.
Conclusion
Now that I'm out of that loop, watch out for my next article which will be on JavaScript loops. See what I did there?
If you are freshly out of campus and never really know how to handle transitions, I hope penning down my thoughts helped you. The bonus of writing this article is that I believed in myself and now I'm a new technical writer at Hit Subscribe. You've got this! Send that email, write that letter. Go ahead and be great.
Trust me, trust you.
Happy Reading!